Wednesday, 2 September 2015

The New Season at Covent Garden

The Royal Opera House's new dance season has been on the House's website since 15 April and it has already attracted some 71 comments, not all of them positive though I can't see why. The Royal Ballet is special and I wish I had the time and resources to see everything though if I did I would never be able to see anything else. There are some who would ask "Why would you want to see anything else when the Royal Ballet is the gold standard, at least in Britain?" My view is that one needs a bit of variety in life. Fish and chips and chicken tikka masala as well as haute cuisine. In ballet terms,that means small regional as well as national flagship companies. So I have to be selective and here are my choices.

This Autumn I am tempted by Viscera, Afternoon of a Faun, Tchaikovsky pas de deux and Carmen particularly Viscera after hearing Laura Morera at the London Ballet Circle last week (see Laura Morera25 Aug 2015). Of course, I am also looking forward to Carlos Acosta's Carmen. There have been lots of attempts to translate Bizet into ballet but they have not generally stuck with the public. Maybe this production will be different.

One ballet that I really love is Ashton's Monotones and that is to be performed with Two Pigeons in November and early December. The Nutcracker returns at Christmas and the Royal Ballet's production is particularly good. There are so many Nutcrackers at that time of the year that it is easy to get Nutcracker fatigue. However this one is magical not least because the House with its Christmas decorations offers such n enchanting setting. It is the show to which I shall take my grandson manqué for his first experience of Covent Garden.

Most of the productions are contributed by the Royal Ballet but there will be visits to the Linbury by our own Phoenix Dance Theatre which I would not miss for the world, the Royal New Zealand Ballet and a number of other interesting companies. This year the Linbury will close for a while which will mean that Ballet Black will have to find somewhere else to launch their new season which is a shame because they always shine in that auditorium. The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company will also have to find another venue if they come to this country this year. I am trying to persuade them to perform at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre and if they came to Leeds Gita and I would spoil them to bits. But I guess there are many other factors that they have to consider.